Mukade

K and L were actually playing nicely together. We just got home from picking L up from daycare, and the two of them were on the sofa (lying side by side) watching a My Little Pony episode on the iPad. Little N was asleep in the carseat, so i jumped into dinner prep, (foolishly) thinking i might actually get it done by myself tonight before someone woke up or cried! All of a sudden, L's saying he sees a mushi. Then he comes over screaming saying there is a mushi down his shirt. I lift up his shirt to see a mother&&";43: mukade (about 7cm long perhaps) crawling all over his chest!!! Aaarrgh, now I'm screaming, so of course he gets more scared. Managed to get it off him, but he says the top of his shoulder hurts--there is a single red dot and it is red all around. I called J who googled it and said to put him under a hot shower (apparently over 42deg water will kill the venom.) so despite my desire to call an ambulance and have him rushed to hospital, we shower, then bath. (And L says it doesn't hurt, so I'm no longer sure if he has been bitten or not anyway now.). It also doesn't seem to be swollen or anything, so hoping he's ok.

Now I'm shitscared tho, wondering where "the other one" is--apparently they hang out in pairs. Ugh. And of course I can't sit on the sofa for fear of having one if those horrid creatures climbing over me, or worse Little N;(

Mukade suck!!!
Fwiw, the mukade is outside on the verandah in a ziplock bag. If you kill them by squashing them, they let off some smell to alert other mukade to come attack their predator--so dint want that happening. Will either throw out in Nama gomi or drown in oil, or boil to death in boiling water.

Still shuddering thinking about it:(

Grateful on Mother's Day

Today I am feeling grateful.

Grateful to my mum for being such a wonderful mum! She is the kind of mum I wish I could be, yet I fail to be like her in so many ways;( I admire her calm level-headedness, and her parenting style, and am grateful to be able to call her my mum. I am grateful to her and dad for being here during the first month of all my kids lives, to support me and J and help out with the older kids. I really believe that I would not have gotten through the first month (especially with L and now N) without their support .


I am feeling grateful for having three beautiful, healthy children grace their lives to me and J. Though they piss me off sometimes, and I am still so far away from bring the mother I wish I could be (see above!) today I am especially grateful for them being here with us.

I had some very sad news last night, news that still makes me well up with tears.
A friend lost her baby at 33weeks. Baby had been doing well, then seemed to stop moving, so my friend went for a check up and was told that the baby's heart had stopped beating. Their second child, a beautiful baby girl, was stillborn.
I cannot imagine how my friend must be feeling, or how she could get over such a tragedy, but she is doing her best to be positive and I am grateful to her and her family for being able to get through this difficult time. And reminding me that life is just so precious.

So today I am taking stock of my life and feeling grateful for being given the chance to be a mother to my three beautiful kids, and grateful to them for putting up with a mess-of-a-mother that I am......meanwhile I am hopeful that one day soon I will be able to be more like my mum and the kind of mother I wish (and believe) I can be.

Pregnancy: rage and suspenders

Am in the throes of pregnancy rage -- is that a real thing??? Well, it is either the pregnancy, or the massive amount of chocolate I have stuffed myself with the last week.

And I blame Costco and those mother-f&ing choc muffins! (My lack of will-power does NOT come into play, tyvm).

As I say am not sure if the rage officially comes from pregnancy or chocolate (am willing to test this theory out post-partum with another chocolate face-stuffing session, so will be sure to report back with results;)
But there have been a few incidents in the last day or so, namely:
* a stoopid woman driving a kei-car the size of a kids toy-car, who seriously nearly wiped me and my car out while trying to reverse into the parking lot beside me at the shops. There was no other car in sight (nine parked the other side if the empty carpark she was trying to get into) yet she came in on such a bad angle that she literally missed the back of my car by a cats whisker....just as I came back to my car do I witnessed it all. When I held up my hands to get her to stop, she was like , "it's ok, I'm watching where I am going" and I was like all raging back at her: "wtf lady, you are driving a bloody match-box car lady--you shouldn't be this close to my car to start with!!!??"

* Then we are driving down a narrow road, where you have to schlop off to the side to let a car pass if one comes from the other way, so I am schlopping left when one of the school kids who were playing baseball in the middle of the said road(this is right at an (albeit small) intersection, mind you), pitches the ball over the top of my car to the kid half on the road, half in the yard in front if me (and between me and the car coming the other way) so I rolled down the windows and have them BOTH a serving for bring such doofuses!!

But in general, J takes the cake at the moment for being such a great target for my rage. I organize places to go with the kids (little events, even just going to the shops or a walk to the park or something) but I swear he just acts like such a dead-sh&t, seems totally removed from the family unit (like, walking on his own one step behind us, with us being me holding both kids hands) or just acts uninterested in anything;(
Then last night K was so excited to show him some things we bought for her upcoming birthday party, but he couldn't even sit through looking at them all (like a few minutes) and when I called him out on it, he was like "so I get in trouble for not looking at every single thing?" What he doesn't get is that it happens all the time -- he tunes out, appears uninterested..
I totally can't even be bothered talking to him. (End rant;)

As for the suspenders, I'm surprised I didn't think of this before (at least by pregnancy #2)!! What a great idea to hold up those maternity pants with the elastic waist-bands that keep slipping off my enormous belly.!! I will be making much use of my new suspenders for the next month, even if they really do make me look like a circus clown ;)

Hazy Sunday BBQ

J's friends came over today for Lunch.
They arrived over an hour EARLY-- I was still in my pj's having spent the morning making salads and side dishes and cleaning out the kids playroom while the kids totally trashed the living room. I then never even got a chance to clean up the living room before they troddled upstairs. Talk about bring totally caught out. Who the hell arrives an hour early (other than the PlL but I expect that from them at least now)

There were three families who came and we basically spent the whole day eating and drinking--our planned bbq was brought inside thanks to the eerie yellow hazy sky that blanketed Kanto today.
Pre-lunch we snacked on carrots/cucumber/paprika sticks, cheese, sun dried tomatoes and corn chops. Lunch was roast chicken, Italian sausages (chicken and apple, and habanero and cheese), roast potato and onion, green salad, Greek salad, Chinese cabbage salad, corn bread rolls from Costco. Post lunch was pizzas, followed by another round of cheese&biccies with grapes; soy-beans; mussels in garlic butter; popcorn...

We didn't get around to eating dessert until 6pm!

When everyone left at 8pm, my kids wanted more food--I managed to persuade them to eat up bread rolls and leftover chicken;)

Talk about a mammoth day. I had to sit on the sofa (as in could not move) for about 40mins around 2pm after having standing up all day, ouch, my back!!!

And while I am enjoying my cuppa to wind down now, another night of bloody baseball on TV is haunting me, haha. When will the World Series it whatever it is be over??

Defeats the purpose

Have several of J's friends coming over tmr for a bit of a barbie. Want to get some prep and cleaning done but L is in clingy mode. Even putting Doraemon on --he won't watch it unless it is from my lap!! Totally defeats the purpose, right?! Lol.

I don't even have a cuppa (can't get up to make one) to get me through the trauma of having to sit through an episode of Doraemon :(

TGMF and manuka

There Goes My Friday (night)...
J usually goes to the gym Fri nights. And sometimes Tues nights. I kinda expect to have to do the kids bath-bed routine myself, and when I don't fall asleep with them, enjoy an hour or so of English sitcoms or tv-dramas. Currently just limited to NCIS LA (since Glee finished on nhk, and I haven't been faffed to turn the computer on to stream Mad Men, and am pretty current with Downton & Good Wife) .
But still, I enjoy my English tv time.
Not tonight though. It's been HOURS of bloody baseball. In general, I actually enjoy watching most sports on tv, but think baseball is more boring than watching toenails grow. I kept on expecting it to end, but it is still going!!!

So I have up on my tv time, and spent the night researching New Zealandish Manuka honey -- its a welcome present for the PIL (my folks will be here in April) and J also wants some for a business colleague. But gee it's confusing!!! All the UMFs and MGOs and I still can't make a decision about which is the best buy. They now also have Australian Manuka honey too!! plus we saw it at costcos today for about 3000yen (500g jar of 10+; same brand selling at an online Aus store for just over $20.) so am wondering if we don't just buy it here and be done with it!
And anyway--I can't even touch the stuff as it gives me an allergic/asthmatic reaction so I'm happy if my parents keep that luggage space for more important items. Like easter eggs, and dedicated coconut, and decaf tea bags, and tinned spaghetti and baked beans;)

Having troubles commenting on my own blog;(

From the iPhone. Boo-hoo! Will try to fix it. In the meantime, thanks to Gaijinwife and Kyushukel for the recent comments-- you must have inspired me to at least try blogging again;)

Have just uploaded the blogger app for iPhone, trying to find my way around that for now.

L won a giraffe!!

Seriously;)
We never win anything. Most recently, we tried to win tickets for Disneyland by collecting the points off the bread (only bought yamazaki bread for two or three months, and must have sent in at least a dozen forms)...but nada.
I think the last thing I actually won was a Paula Abdul LP, or was it the Bobby Brown LP - cant remember which came last, since I was in about 7th or 8th grade!!

So after we went to the zoo a couple of weeks ago, answered the sticker quiz and put our entry in the box we all forgot about the competition...until the doorbell rang at 7:50pm last night and the postie delivered L his very own plastic giraffe model toy. He was totally taken with it-it slept with him, ate breakfast with him, rode in the car with him to drop K off at school...not sure what happened to it after that, though;)

K was kinda pisses she didn't win anything, but we put her entry into the draw for the main prize, so I guess that was out fault for aiming high. I still think its a rort that most competitions in Japan make you choose which prize you are going for. No such thing as runners-up when you've only got one chance;(

So yeah, don't know if I am "back" blogging or not(can only access my blog thru iPhone as forgotten my password, and blogging from an iPhone is kinda painful!!) but for some reason (for the first time in a long time) I felt like posting--all thanks to a little plastic giraffe.
How Random;)

David Bowie And Nike

"ch-ch-ch-changes♪"
The months of April and May have brought us many!
* k turned 5. No longer a baby at five years old;( you can see the difference in her too -- my little baby girl all grown up(;;)
* k started pre-school. She is nen-chu. She LOVES it, wants to leave the house before 8:30 most mornings to get there early;)
* L turned 2! My, how those two years have flown. And he has FINALLY started sleeping through the night - by which I mean 7:30pm until 4:30am! We stopped nursing overnight, but still had a sesh at 4:30am, then 5am, then 5:30am ...(You get the picture:) until I got sick of it and either gave him the iPhone or got out of bed myself!!
* and then come May, and we finally stopped that morning nursing session too, after we came back from GW holidays. Weird (bittersweet) to think my boobies are done, packed away for good now.
* L started day-care. He cried for the first 5 days when dropped off (had to come home the first day before lunch he was inconsolable) but by day 6 he goes off without any tears, and seems to enjoy playing with the other kids, and even gave his teacher a big kiss when leaving yesterday.
* and me? Well, I got a job. Yep, a real job. In-house translating. Is it weird that I love hearing the click click of my high heels as I walk? Lol.

Yep, lots of changes and still trying to work out our daily rhythm, but to tell you the truth, it was easier to make the change than I thought - For all the worry about is it the right decision to go back to work, put L into daycare etc etc, it all seems to be working out. I guess Nike does give right advice - "just do it!"

82

I get a mention on gaijin wife's blog (http://gaijinwife.wordpress.com/) And I get 82 hits here today!! That's enough to get anyone back blogging:) lol.